Grocery store CEO clarifies Harris' price gouging accusation

The CEO of a grocery chain clarifies Vice President Kamala Harris's allegations that they are about price gouging.

“I have never met anyone who charges extortionate prices,” Stew Leonard Jr. said in an interview with FOX Business' Elizabeth MacDonald on “The Evening Edit.”

However, he noted that the farmers and ranchers he spoke with had adjusted their prices to reflect the increase in costs.

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“Our farmers and ranchers are responding to the price increases that have led to a rise in food prices over the past two or three years,” he noted.

“We're seeing increases. Anyone who owns a home, condo or apartment is seeing rising costs for fuel and energy. Gasoline used to be about $2 or $3 a gallon, now it's a little more,” he continued.

Leonard Jr. also mentioned how he talks to and deals with his suppliers who tell him their prices are increasing.

“They're not calling me trying to artificially increase their prices, they're calling me because their prices are going up.”

Harris' campaign released a document last week saying that if elected, her administration would work with Congress to “advance the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries; set clear rules of the game to make it clear that large corporations cannot unfairly exploit consumers to make excessive profits from food and groceries.”

Referring to the vice president's plan to combat price gouging, Leonard Jr. said, “I'm sure” there was a “small percentage” of companies that had a “small window of opportunity” during COVID.

“Most people out there have had to raise their prices right now because costs have gone up,” adding that overall regulation is “good” for his business to “protect the consumer.”

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As for regulating food prices, Leonard Jr. said, “Let’s leave pricing to the market.”

“One thing I've learned in my 50 years in retail in our family business: If you raise prices, guess what happens to sales. They go down, you know, unless you're Gucci or Prada or something like that.”

Eric Revell of FOX Business contributed to this report.